McGinn to Nickels: Let Seattle vote on viaduct tunnel

Michael McGinn began his mayoral campaign talking about the Alaskan Way Viaduct. With Mayor Greg Nickels’ help, McGinn will keep talking about the viaduct right up to next week’s primary election.

On Monday Nickels’ campaign said it would place robocalls to thousands of Seattle voters to combat McGinn’s “distortions” about plans to replace the viaduct with a tunnel. McGinn, the former Sierra Club leader, opposes the tunnel plan and says the $930 million Seattle will spend on it would be better used elsewhere.

“(McGinn’s) actual position on the Viaduct – which he leaves out of his communications with city voters – would involve tearing up the existing agreement with the state in order to take down the Viaduct and replace it with surface streets. This option would still require $930 million from Seattle taxpayers,” Nickels’ spokesman Sandeep Kaushik said Monday.

McGinn said Tuesday that’s not the case.

“Nickels is desperately trying to convince voters that they have to pay $930 million plus cost overruns no matter what solution we come up with,” McGinn said in a statement. “That’s simply false. The cheaper option he rejected would cost Seattle much less.”

In 2007 Seattle voters were presented with a convoluted ballot measure asking them how they wanted to replace the viaduct, the earthquake-damaged, double-decker roadway that carries more than 100,000 vehicles a day along Seattle’s waterfront. Voters were asked to choose between a surface-tunnel hybrid and an elevated structure. They rejected both options.

McGinn and a big portion of Seattle’s environmental community favor tearing down the viaduct and dispersing traffic on surface streets.

McGinn says its time for Jet City residents to have their say again on what to do with the viaduct.

“Taxpayers deserve total transparency about which taxes will go up to pay for the tunnel. And they deserve that information before they vote,” he said. “If Greg Nickels thinks it’s such a good deal for Seattle voters, than he should put it on the ballot and make his case. We vote on levies all the time, and we approve the ones we think make sense. To argue the voters shouldn’t get a say about the largest tax increase in city history is beyond belief.”